Consortium (ECOL): Professor Päivi Häkkinen, University of Jyväskylä and

1. Ecology of Collaboration E C O L:Collaboration as Motivated and Co-ordinated Activity in Learning at Higher Education and Work-Place Contexts Consortium (ECOL): Professor Päivi Häkkinen, University of Jyväskylä and Professor Sanna Järvelä, University of Oulu

2. Background • Collaborative learning as a complex phenomenon • Research results of CSCL contradictory and collaborative processes are often over-generalized • The detailed mechanism of a process of collaboration has not been well understood, nor has motivational interpretations associated with collaborative theory and practice. • Needs to improve work quality, creativity and performance in knowledge-intensive work and studying deals with motivation.

3. Aims • ECOLOGY OF COLLABORATION: collaborative and motivational processes of learning, as well as technological tools mediating social interactions are seen as a merged unit uniquely situated in a particular context • combining theories of collaborative learning (Baker, 2002; Barron, 2000; Crook, 2000; Dillenbourg, 1999; Häkkinen, 2001) as well as recent theoretical views on contextual motivation (Järvelä et al., 1999; Pintrich, 2000; Volet & Järvelä, 2001)

4. Research task 1:Collaboration as co-ordinated activity: seeking after shared understanding • What is the process of collaborative interaction itself and its’ contribution to learning? • particular collaborative activities in context • How do distributed teams manage, monitor and co-ordinate their joint activities? • co-ordination of knowledge, sense of co-presense

5. Research task 2: Motivational processes and shared understanding in collaborative learning • What is the role of social context in student motivation and action in learning? How motivation is constructed in socially shared and collaborative learning setting? • How the changing study or working-life context from conventional to distributed collaborative setting effects on learner’s motivation and adaptation to the learning? • In collaboration with MOREL

6. Research task 3: Technological tools to create spaces for collaboration and increase awareness of social processes • How can technology better enable participants to find each other and form collaborative groups around mutual interests, skills, and needs in distributed teams? • What is the role of awareness tools in virtual spaces meant for supporting productive joint engagement and shared understanding? • Multidisciplinary collaboration

7. Design design experiments – multiple methods – context sensitive data – continuous data collection – computer-generated data and methods

8. Research network • Dr. Michael Baker, CNRS & Université Lumière Lyon 2, France • Prof. Director Pierre Dillenbourg, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Technical University of Lausenne, Switzerland • Prof. Frank Fischer, Institute of Educational Psychology and Empirical Pedagogy, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany • Ass. Prof. Simone Volet, Murdoch University, Australia • Prof. Kari Kuutti, Dept. of Information Processing Science, University of Oulu, Prof. Tommi Kärkkäinen, Dept. of MIT, University of Jyväskylä • Learn / MOREL - University of Turku, prof. Marja Vauras et al. • Researchers: Johanna Bluemink, Piritta Leinonen, Hanna Järvenoja, Kati Mäkitalo, Johanna Pöysä